Getting it
by Rat
Summary: Matt doesn't want to be anyone's inspiration. He doesn't want to be anyone's project.


The music wasn't obnoxiously loud. The background noise was of people having fun. They'd won the case for their client. It was a good night.

It was a good night until Foggy groaned and Matt sat up a little straighter, suddenly alert. "What?"

There was no time for Foggy to answer, the chair Karen had recently vacated (someone has to be alert in the morning) scraped backwards. A woman sat, a little uncoordinated, smelled like rye and coke and floral perfume and ceaser salad for lunch and cats. Short. Medium build. A fairly large size purse. It thumped heavy against the table. A scent; iron? A handgun? Loose change jingled and as a puff of air escaped through the zipper there was a strong smell of stale breath mints.

"Hey Foggy, its great seeing you again!" Foggy stood up as she gave him a hug and then stretched onto her tip toes to kiss his cheek. Then she turned towards Matt and placed a hand on his shoulder.

"Hi Matt. Do you know who I am?" The volume of her voice increased as though he were deaf and not blind, and she pronounced her words carefully. He heard an exasperated sigh from Foggy as he sat back down.

Her voice sounded familiar, but not enough to place a name. He knew she was part of the DA's team and she apparently knew Foggy. Should he recognize her from Columbia?

Matt smiled and held out his hand. "Sorry, I don't know your name. Your with the DA office?"

She shook his hand, holding on a bit longer than necessary. "Yes. Nancy Cunningham. We had a class together at Columbia. Do you remember me?"

Out of how many classes and how many students? He felt Foggy's knee bump his under the table. "No, sorry." Matt responded politely.

"I was really impressed with your closing statement today."

"Thanks."

"How do you prepare?"

"Uhm, same as anyone I guess." Matt said easily.

"I saw you using something at the table. Do you write your notes in Braille?" She asked. "Doesn't that take a long time?"

He understood people being curious. People were always curious. It was usually okay and he usually didn't mind. There was something in the way she asked that set him on edge. The fact that he didn't answer right away didn't seem to deter her any.

"What was that thing you were using called?"

"A slate and stylus. Sometimes it takes an extra step, but it's pretty efficient."

"You really are an inspiration." Nancy reached across the table and placed her hand on Matt's arm again.

"Okay." You're an inspiration. He'd heard it before from the same people who in the next breath often declared they would have given up on living long ago if they were in his shoes. This. This was the kind of attention he hated.

Foggy's arm brushed against Matt's back as he stretched. "Well. It's getting late. We should be going."

"It is so awesome that the two of you decided to keep working together after college."

"Foggy's an excellent lawyer." Matt agreed.

Nancy took another sip of her beverage. "Foggy was a legend in the learning strategies class."

The extreme and sudden reaction coming off his friend stirred Matt's curiosity. Not did Foggy abruptly tense, but his heartbeat was three times as loud as it had been moments before. "The what class?"

"Learning Strategies." She enunciated as though he hadn't heard the word. "You know, the accessibility program to encourage integration. Foggy was amazing with the disabled students, but I guess you already know that. He talked about you all the time."

Matt leaned back and ignored Foggy's knee pressed up against his.

"We really need to be going." Foggy insisted.

"What class?" Matt asked again, this time towards Foggy.

Foggy released a sigh of resignation but he didn't relax any. "It was an elective in the Disability Studies program."

"Right." He tried to block out the sound of Foggy's heart racing beside him and turned back to Nancy. "So, he talked about me in class?"

"Oh yeah, it was really useful to hear his insight on the challenges people like you face on a day to day basis. The class was great, but it wasn't my area of interest like it was for Foggy."

The conversation lapsed for a moment and Matt heard Foggy's heartbeat jump again. Matt's thoughts shifted towards his activities as Daredevil, this was the signal his target was about to act and he tensed reflexively. What would it be? Fight or flight?

"I hate to cut things short but we've got an early day tomorrow. Bye, Nancy. Great catching up with you." Foggy said. She hugged him again. And then Foggy stood, waiting for Matt.

"Can we talk?" He asked as Matt stood.

"Yeah." It wasn't so long ago he was begging the same thing. Fair is fair. But Matt wasn't ready to pretend that he was okay with any of it.

Matt walked out with him. It was crowded, and so he placed his arm on Foggy's elbow to follow through the crowd but outside he let go and gave himself some much needed space.

"Disability studies? You talked about your classes all the time. You never mentioned anything about that."

"Sure I did." Foggy insisted.

"Fine. You asked me questions. You are always asking me questions. Questions about disability access options around campus, and in certain businesses. I didn't know I was your research project." Matt started walking.

"You weren't a research project. Alright, sometimes I asked you stuff specifically related to a class subject. But," Foggy fell into step beside him and kept pace. "You're not, you never were the object of research. You ask me questions too; you knew about my uncle being a butcher and you asked me about processed meat once."

"Not the same thing."

"Right. I know. Sorry. I asked you because you're the expert on what it's like to be you."

"Fine, forget it, it's not a big deal." Matt insisted.

"Yeah, it is." And this time Foggy grabbed Matt's arm and pulled him to a stop. Matt had to force himself not to break contact. He listened to Foggy breathe, his breath huffing as he considered what to say next. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you I was taking the disability legal studies classes. I guess I kind of felt weird about it and I didn't want you to feel weird about it."

"I don't appreciate being used as a case study."

"That's exactly what I wanted to avoid. You weren't a case study, Matt. Yes, I talked about you sometimes in class and I shouldn't have done that without your permission. When there was stuff at school that didn't work for you because no one thinks about what it's like to navigate the world without sight, that's when I would sometimes bring it up in class. I talked to you about it to get your perspective on how it could be fixed to make it accessible. Sometimes I took it straight to student services to see what could be done about it. I didn't do it to earn extra credit."

"The admissions website." Matt said softly. He heard Foggy's clothes rustle as he shrugged. He remembered being frustrated with the website while trying to sign up for courses. Beyond frustrated. The admissions website had been impossible to navigate with his screen reader because there were no headings in it and when he'd finally given up and asked for Foggy's help, he remembered Foggy asking a ton of questions on what would make the website easier to use. Inexplicably a few days after that he got a call from student services asking him the same thing. And then there'd been the snow clearing issue. And the piece of paper typically taped on the classroom door when there was a class change notification that one days started including Braille tags.

The more he thought about it the more he realized how little issues tended to resolve themselves or how he would coincidently receive a call from student services asking if there were any improvements he would like to see made in campus accessibility.

This revelation didn't make him feel any better. "I never asked you to solve my problems for me."

"I wasn't. Those things weren't your problems, Matt. They were problems with the environment that needed to be fixed."

Foggy's hand was still wrapped around his arm, urging him to stay and listen. He reached up and touched his fingers to Foggy's. That was the thing. Disability services tended to see him as the problem to be fixed rather than focusing on fixing the environment.

And just like that Matt forgave him.

Foggy got it.

One of the things, in fact the first thing, that attracted him to Foggy was that Foggy was never afraid to acknowledge that he was blind and yet still treated him like a regular person. He never made it seem awkward when he described what he was doing or read out signs and billboards and interpreted action sequences in the movies they watched.

"Alright." He smiled, and his smile broadened as he felt Foggy relax. Maybe it wasn't so bad discovering that Foggy had secrets of his own.


End file.
